Chapter 6. Terra Incognita

The egg’s appearance reminded me of the one where I came from, but this one had its own small differences. It appeared to be more fragile as if it would tear with merely touching it. The greenish egg was covered in vile, translucid, and inside, a larva swirled and grew faster than anything else I’d seen so far. It would be a lie saying that the scientist in me wasn’t a little intrigued.

Every time I witnessed something fantastic, part of me marveled, while other got used to it. I feared that at that rate, I would lose all capacity to feel surprised again. But of course, that would never be the case.

The whole ordeal had left me exhausted and famished. I climbed through the eroded stone and consumed the rest of the boa. No new skills were gained that time, a mild disappointment to be honest. After regaining the two levels of biomass used of the first egg, I spend them again laying the second one. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as taxing as the first time, and oddly enough too, it didn’t leave me starving either.

This wasn’t how I pictured becoming a mother, but so be it. Some part of me wants to protect these eggs, while the other sees them as an investment. Human and beast. Can’t tell which is which, though.

I wondered about the time it will take the eggs to hatch, and I got my answer almost immediately.

Arachnid egg. Lvl. 0. Gestating: 21 hours, 10 minutes left. Arachnid egg. Lvl. 0. Gestating: 20 hours, 51 minutes left.

Time is ticking then. Need to get food.

I knew my decision of choosing [Spawning] might seem counter-intuitive when it comes to my aspiration of becoming or at least staying more human. But if my previous life had left something in me besides petty grudges and psychological scars, was learning about the real importance of friendship and loyalty. Not some stupid speech about values mind you, but the realization that when a problem occurs, most people don’t want to face them alone. Even the most hardened bastards I knew couldn’t do everything on their own.

So yeah, I decided to make myself some grunts. But don’t get me wrong, I had no delusions with these eggs. Between befriending monsters and commanding them, I’ll choose the latter on all occasions.

Still, the current problem came down to food. Now I had three mouths to feed. And the nagging sensation that tomorrow would be a hassle didn’t help to conciliate sleep.

Even with their abnormal growth, these eggs just couldn’t develop fast enough.

The next day started normally.

I spent the night sleeping in front of my eggs, guarding them under the cold, hard stone. I wake up late. The sun had almost reached its highest point when I used the waterfall to wash over me. Terrible idea by the way, but it served its purpose. Made me feel fresh.

It only had one day of being dead, but the snake’s corpse was starting to stink. And if I could smell the stench, then other hungry creatures could as well.

I took the body from the nest and washed it on the stream. The more prominent bones sank, while the small ones were left afloat. Though my interest was placed on the skin, so once the gory remains were gone through the small cracks, I took the hide and dragged it through the mud to conceal the smell. Once everything was set, I put both eggs inside the leather and took them to the highest part of the nest. I reckoned that with some luck, the camouflage would be enough to keep them safe from predators while I was away.

Rechecking the time, I memorized it would take ten more hours until the first egg hatched, and they started trying to eat each other, so I needed to be here before that happen, and with something to feed us all.

It was time to exit this cave. Sometimes the best treatment of overcome one’s fears was to face them. I honestly believed that otherwise, I wouldn’t have stepped outside.

The yellow sun had already reached its peak. It was hot and muggy. Most of the vegetation was green, with its exceptions. Plants of exotic colors grew here and there. Tall trees sprang pointing towards the blue sky, and in some places, they even blocked the sunlight, creating patches of darkness in the middle of the forest.

After a moment of silent contemplation, I was put out of my thoughts by a strong wind testing my balance. I left the vines and climbed the highest tree I could find.

Being a fan of fantasy and fiction myself, I was prepared for the most mind-shattering, Lovecraftian world, but overall, this wasn’t that bad. Not weird at all. I could even call it normal. Nothing but trees as far as my eyes could see, surrounded by mountains on all sides.

One thing stood out, though. Making my legs shake.

Smoke was coming from the north.

That could be anything, right? It could just be a wildfire. Or a dragon! Yes! It could be that too. I would believe it at this point. Sigh. Why did I have to go raising flags about finding people? Now I have to check it out. I guess. I have always been good denying reality. Perhaps I’ll say my greetings in about a month or two when I have an army at my back. I just want to be sure I won’t get killed on sight, that’s all.

If I wasn’t in need of motivation to evolve and feed the eggs, now I had it.

I put the smoke in the background of my thoughts to the best I could and began searching food using [Infrared Detection] to notice faint changes in temperature.

I should explain that not all the ‘trait’ skills worked like passives, and were active all the time. I guessed that would have been too exhausting. Instead, some didn’t activate until I wanted at no stamina cost, but still demanded some level of concentration from me. Such was the case with [Infrared Detection]. Sensing the environment through heat was oddly satisfying though because I could ‘see’ even with my eyes closed.

Shortly after activating the skill, I began noticing the thermal changes on the ground, like tracks, animal residue, or dripping sweat. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than wandering for hours, not to mention it served as practice as well.

Eventually, I noticed a particular trace not too far from my location, so I began following it from the trees while a leaving a trail of marking on the wood so that I could find the way back later. Using altitude as an advantage had its fancy. Somehow, dropping my entire weight on to something had become my favorite tactic since the fight with the snake, and I liked having that extra element of surprise on my side just in case.

I got the proper [Tracking] skill after a while and shifted it with [Infrared Detection] to obtain better results. As incredible as it was, that skill wasn’t reliable in this damn heat. Perhaps overnight it would produce accurate results, but for that, I had [Night Vision] instead.

It turned out that what I was following was something akin to a rabbit with horns and an unusually long tail.

Archival Inspection. Species: Venomous Lebrilope Sex: Male Tier: 1 Level: 4

It didn’t look dangerous to me, though. Just a cruel mixture of cute and delicious. I felt sorry for it.

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t the only one interested in the horned rodent, as another animal followed us closely. [Shadow Panther] was the name I got when I examined it. Reasonably fitting, as it had the perfect black fur to blend in with the shadows, and it wasn’t until it had stepped into the light that I saw it.

The panther wasn’t aware of my presence, and I liked to keep it that way, at least until I saw the situation unfold.

The panther ducked its head down, below the grass level. It approached the unaware rabbit with slow movements and attacked it from behind. Everything was over in a splint of seconds, and I had to use [Quick Reflexes] to keep up with the ensuing fight.

The Lebrilope jumped, planning to avoid the panther’s bite just by a couple of millimeters. But the battle was already over. The rabbit had an entire piece of his neck missing, blood and fur spilled all over the ground, and in the panther’s mouth.

Carefully, the panther approached the dying animal, but before it could land the final blow, I fell in. Quite literally.

Like most street fights, it wasn’t pretty. The panther had reflexes that matched my own, and hence, I couldn’t take it by surprise. Moments before I grabbed it with my body, the feline attempted to slip away. Therefore, my initial plan of reducing the panther to a two-dimensional being got ironically crushed, and now I had to do the unpleasant work.

At least it was fun, though.

I had the panther under a tight grip, and I bite it not once but several times in quick succession. We rolled through the dirt, grass and even thorns, but thanks to [Robust Exoskeleton] I didn’t suffer any damage. The panther, however, was covered in small cuts, and although it wasn’t making it bleed much, it was tiring the panther down. Alas, the animal was much stronger than I was, and apparently, it had far more stamina than me as well. I was going to get tired before either my venom or the bleeding worked, so I improvised.

Using my whole body, I constricted the panther until it stopped moving, and tried to ignore the cracking of bones, snapping like popcorn. Then I fell on top of the two bodies, the panther and bunny, panting and catching my breath.

But the afternoon was just starting.

I heard something coming from the woods and even dared to guess it was a scream.

Is someone here? For a moment, I stopped thinking. It was too tempting to let it slip away. There was more than enough time to spare until the eggs hatched, so I could get more food later even if this got stolen. Rational or not, I had to take the risk of being seeing.

Leaving the bodies behind, I ran towards the source, and not too long after that, I found it.

Cornered at the end of a crevice, a girl on her teens fended off another [Shadow Panther] with just a branch. Her clothes were muddied, torn apart, and stained with dark patches on her left arm. The smell of blood was unmistakable.

I thought about helping the girl. Sadly, that’s the person I was back on Earth. Someone who even has to consider helping others.

As a doctor, I should be able to do it. That said, I had no equipment, and neither was I aware of the vegetation around here had any medicinal properties. So currently, I was useless in that field. Fortunate for her, the cut appeared to be shallow, but would still need antibiotics and bandages to prevent any infection and treat the wound.

“Vaba!” The girl shouted something that I didn’t understand, and the panther roared in return.

What am I even thinking? She has more present problems than her arm. For one, she won’t make it out of here with that thing in front of her. Should I create a distraction so she can run away? Hopefully, I can even kill it and get something out of this.

I took both of them by surprise, running towards the panther, and rammed it with my body. The animal whimper from pain, but quickly change into a fighting stance. It lunged forward to bite me, and I allowed it. The teeth pierce into my carapace, and I could feel a faint pain coming from one of my legs. Just by following its instincts, the panther put itself within my reach.

The fight didn’t last long after that.

I turned around to check on the girl, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had run away after my entrance but didn’t make it far. She was a couple of steps away, lying unconscious on the ground.